Still waiting for the first Boglehead thread to claim an negative withdrawal rate is unsafe because it causes an increase in taxes. Distracting animated gif removed by Mod Mel. (They're not allowed.) If it weren't for beating dead horses (4% rule, international or not, home ownership, etc) what wou...

For others considering the same question, is it also important to consider your other investments? I have always viewed the 529 accounts as part of my overall investment portfolio. So, if I were inclined to become more conservative because I wanted to protect my tax advantaged money for education ex...

Let me add a complication: Perhaps in a FIFO world, I would transfer-in-kind old shares with gains to another financial institution leaving me with the newer shares with losses in place for tax-loss harvesting. That would be an interesting issue that presumably would be resolved the same way wash s...

So, in theory, one can imagine a world in which one is no longer permitted to select individual lots when making a sale. Were we to live in such a world, how would it change your situation? I think it might dramatically lower the value of Betterment, Wealthfront and FolioFN because tax loss harvesti...

For me it comes down to want versus need. I want to be able to safely withdraw $125,000 a year, so I need $3,125,000 in starting assets. When I hit my number, the market may tank and my starting assets at the end of day 1 are now $3,000,000. Do I adjust my "want" to be a withdrawal of $120,000? Answ...

I closed out the wealthfront accounts. Not very happy with how they handle that. They tell you that they send you a confirmation e-mail but don't tell you that you have to open it and confirm the sale transaction. That is a little beyond ridiculous. Then, they tell me that they can't issue the money...

I've purchased three new cars in my life, and paid cash for each one. The first was a Nisan Murano and they took my personal check and I left with the car. The other two were Honda CRV's and I technically financed them because the dealer would not take a personal check. However, the finance company ...

I ordered my 2018 Quicken Premier 2 year from Amazon with an extended 3 months included. So 27 months before I will update again or discontinue Quicken altogether. When it works correctly Quicken is a great financial program. Currently we have money in 3 brokerage firms, HSA accounts and a few bank...

I have some iBonds, but they are not exactly liquid for short term trading. I plan to use this more like a savings account to fund my check writing. If I did that with the iBonds I think i would eventually wind up liquidating something that resulted in a forfeiture of interest and otherwise wind up ...

David, thank you for sharing your M1 experience. I have opened an account but haven't funded yet. A couple questions: 1- How detailed is the dashboard after funding? Does it have enough info to manually record number of shares/price in Quicken? 2- Have you tested the function to reduce (but not eli...

I was considering using this like a savings/checking account. I don't care, if in the short term, it earns less than a savings account. But, over time, I am curious whether it would outperform. Accordingly, I would be buying and selling as paychecks come in and expenses need to be paid. I might try...

“It measures the largest single drop from peak to bottom in the value of a portfolio (before a new peak is achieved).” So that is better than the worst year in the sense that IF i am adding to it regularly it won’t be down as much as the worst possible year. ? No one knows what the future holds. I ...

“It measures the largest single drop from peak to bottom in the value of a portfolio (before a new peak is achieved).” So that is better than the worst year in the sense that IF i am adding to it regularly it won’t be down as much as the worst possible year. ?

Why do you subtract standard deviation from Cagr rather than just look at the worst year to see how bad things get when risk enters the picture? I am not surprised a 50% cash portfolio is less risky. I don’t care overly much if I lose a couple percentage points once in a while if on average I am goi...

I was considering using this like a savings/checking account. I don't care, if in the short term, it earns less than a savings account. But, over time, I am curious whether it would outperform. Accordingly, I would be buying and selling as paychecks come in and expenses need to be paid. I might try...

I was considering using this like a savings/checking account. I don't care, if in the short term, it earns less than a savings account. But, over time, I am curious whether it would outperform. Accordingly, I would be buying and selling as paychecks come in and expenses need to be paid. I might try...

I was considering using this like a savings/checking account. I don't care, if in the short term, it earns less than a savings account. But, over time, I am curious whether it would outperform. Accordingly, I would be buying and selling as paychecks come in and expenses need to be paid. I might try ...

How do you come to the $130,000 figure? The way I figured it, if $1M in coverage when I had nothing, was enough then all other things being equal one should not need the coverage when they have accumulated $1M. Of course it is in the market so it won’t always be worth $1M. And, I had no kids when I ...

Use a mix of Short Term and Mid Term CD's instead - a rolling ladder coupled with Short Term Bond Index fund. I would not use the MBS fund, it's duration will extend as interest rates rise and mortgage refinancing's fall off. As was noted, you aren't a bank, a bank has access to other tools besides...

EDIT: As for the bit you added while I was replying, " In fact, *IF* I had $50,000 in emergency funds when the market dropped by 50%, you can be damned well certain that I'd throw it all in the market so the contingency of which you speak would simply be a form of market timing for myself ." yes, h...

OP, In general, people with high income need more emergency fund. Not less. The simple reason is it usually took longer to find a new job. There is less opportunity out there. KlangFool I second that. When I nearly lost my job, after a year of searching, the best I could do was find a job where my ...

My cash on hand fluctuates between $5,000 and $70,000. If I need more cash, I sell something. If the markets have been moving up, I incur a tax liability. If they have been moving down, I have a loss to set off against income or future gains. I don't understand why people with securities worry abou...

I'm slowly putting some of my emergency funds in I Bonds. I plan on doing it in a similar fashion as building a CD ladder, though here I'll just put money into I Bonds every ~6 months, so that each new purchase carries the latest fixed rate. Once I've purchased enough to get over the 1-yr redemptio...

My cash on hand fluctuates between $5,000 and $70,000. If I need more cash, I sell something. If the markets have been moving up, I incur a tax liability. If they have been moving down, I have a loss to set off against income or future gains. I don't understand why people with securities worry about...

I will repeat again for those who have not read it before, before you transfer an account, make sure you download all of you transactions. Otherwise, you are likely to find that you cannot do so once the account is transferred. I also encourage you to download your statements before, or immediately ...

You are not a bank. Banks are highly regulated and restricted as to their investment risk. Even without regulation, they need to be very liquid to make settlements on loans. We know nothing about you, except that you are not a bank. So you need to assess your own risk tolerance to get an investment...

Shouldn't be thinking of insurance as an investment... Annual renewable term like the OP and Chadnudj have strike me as a poor choice for most people. Every year the benefit gets smaller in real terms (inflation) but the premium increases, sometimes steeply. Actually, with the COLA portion of the p...

I am curious about your thoughts on the “Bank Balance Sheet” Portfolio, which seeks to replicate where banks keep their excess deposits that are not being loaned out. It is billed as a low risk income producing portfolio currently yielding 2% with an ER of 0.10%. Its 1 year return is lower than a de...

Out of curiosity, why did you pay for guaranteed coverage til age 70? As an attorney it would seem unlikely you would have needed such extended coverage. That is indeed why your premium is so high - maintaining the option to keep insurance into your 60s will drive up the price. I honestly have no m...

something doesn’t add up. have you been paying $2500 per year for twenty years for one million in coverage? that is one reason you are having to second guess the costs - theyre very high. we also do not strictly need my term life any longer, but mine only costs me $750 per year for $1.5 million and...

Given that trading commissions are going to zero and given texhnilofy’s ability to efficiently allocate purchases and sales so as to keep a portfolio at its desired allocation, what do people think about breaking up the equities into small, mid and large, value and growth (in proportion to their we...

I cancelled my term life insurance in the same week I figured I could retire. If I have enough for my wife and I to live on for the rest of our lives, we have enough for her to live on it by herself. No sense in having her grieve in Hawaii or Italy when I am gone. :wink: I feel like we are a little...

The base premium is higher than what I am paying because of the dividend. But, I can't really say that I understand all of the premium numbers being shown. I only know what gets charged annually to the credit card. I understand it is tax free and that half our accounts are in tax-deferred and the ot...

So, I have been paying my premium since 1997 and I have not died yet. This year, the premium comes to $ 2,634.84 and delivers a benefit of $1,142,250.00. Will be turning 50 during the policy year. I have two young children (4 and 7) but after all of these years spent not dying, I have acquired and r...

It is an interesting thing to have 3 stocks I'm invested in and deciding to add 13 more for diversification and then "rebalancing" among them. Whereas I previously had over $30,000 invested in one of the big three, this morning I now have $918 invested in it. Obviously, I will not do as well (or as ...

you would be paying to park assets that you’d be better off housing elsewhere. Yeah, after I posted it occurred to me that I could transfer the VXUS shares out. Duh :oops: But you should be wanting to have a percentage of VXUS in the portfolio and not a static number of shares, no? I'm not big on f...

One of the things that impressed me is the speed with which M1 moves money. I set a transfer up in the morning, by the end of the day it is in the account and it is invested the following morning all before it shows as having been debited from my funding account. Not that this should be important, b...

if you drop it to 10% it updates and just sits there waiting for the next investment and works as advertised. Thank you, David, for the detailed response. I'm curious about something else. Say I want to hold on to an asset but not add to it. For example, say I want to keep the amount of foreign (VX...

I opened a Schwab account this week, mostly to use them for checking account and am going to try out their Intelligent Portfolio. I'm looking to see how the automatic TLH works. Their customer service so far has been very impressive. Their general website is definitely not top of the line but the I...

If you are willing to use M1 (with no TLH) then did you consider Folio or Motif? Folio's unlimited service is $290/yr. This will allow you to create your own Folios = Motifs = Pies and trade/rebalance. Your cost will breakeven with M1 at $128,334 and be cheaper thereafter. Folio does do Window Trad...

1- How detailed is the dashboard after funding? Does it have enough info to manually record number of shares/price in Quicken? You get all of the information needed to input the shares purchased and the price at which they are purchased. It is not immediately apparent from the dashboard where this ...